


Are You With Me? - A Rickyl Collection

by DarylDixonGrimes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Accidental Drinking, Cancer, Dick Pics, Divorce, Drinking, M/M, Pool Shenanigans, Rickyl, Swearing, confused dads, homophobic slur, mentions of ODing and parental death, mentions of child abuse, terminal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2018-04-20 12:39:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4787567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarylDixonGrimes/pseuds/DarylDixonGrimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompts and drabbles from Tumblr and different things. Will update tags and rating as I add to it. </p><p>1. "Two strangers meeting drunk at a party AU"<br/>2. "Going through a divorce AU"<br/>3. "Falling in love with their best friend's partner AU"<br/>4. "Meeting online AU"<br/>5. "Two miserable people meeting at a wedding AU"<br/>6. "Teacher/parent AU"<br/>7. "Parents meeting when they take their kids to class AU"<br/>8. "One of them being diagnosed with a terminal illness AU"<br/>9. "Champagne Kisses" - A New Year's Eve Drabble<br/>10. "Kind of Perfect" - Rick struggles with creating the perfect proposal.<br/>11. "You'll Do" - Daryl and Rick have been sleeping together for a while, but now there's <i>feelings</i>.<br/>12. "The Man on the Bus" - Rick can feel the man on the bus staring at him.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Going through a divorce AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Two strangers meeting drunk at a party AU.

Rick felt warm. Warm and a little fuzzy at the edges. Like a fleece blanket pulled straight from the dryer.

“Shane, I feel weird,” he said. But his words slurred together, and it all came out more like “Shayufeelweird.” He shook his head, trying to clear some of the fuzz away, and then he turned to his best friend beside him.

Shane had his tongue about half a mile down Tracy Welch’s throat, and he probably hadn’t heard anything Rick had said, slurred or otherwise.

“Douchebag.” Wait, did he say that out loud?

Rick pushed himself off the couch and immediately took two unintentional steps to the left, crashing into the wall. Who put that there? Ugh. What the hell was wrong with him? Was he sick? His stomach gave an icky little churn that said maybe.

Fresh air. That was all he needed. Fresh air and an escape from the music he could feel thumping in his chest. A few more crooked steps, and Rick went stumbling out the door into the back yard, nearly falling down the steps before catching himself on the nearest solid object.

“Get your damn hands off me,” the object said. No, not object. Person. Objects didn’t talk. Usually. 

It took Rick a second too long to react, and he felt someone grab his wrist and violently throw his hand off to the side. The solid not-object turned around to face him, and Rick’s stomach did something funny.

Yeah. Definitely sick.

“I feel weird. Do you feel weird?” Rick blurted out. 

The other boy glared at him like he was a little sibling who wouldn’t go away. And then he started laughing, quiet chuckles that turned into a full-on mocking ha-ha-ha’s.

“You’re drunk, you idiot,” he said.

“What?” Rick sank onto the grass beside him, his head feeling a little like it was trying to float away from his body. “But I didn’t…” Someone had offered him a warm beer a few hours back, but Rick hadn’t taken it, knowing full well that he’d be in enough trouble if his parents found out he was at a party like this. If his dad found out he’d actually had alcohol, he’d probably be grounded until graduation. Not even high school graduation either. No sir. Rick wouldn’t be free until he finished college. 

“I spiked the punch, dumbass.” The boy held up a little clear plastic cup and then downed the rest of it casually. “Couldn’t you taste it?”  

“You spied…spi-” But Rick didn’t have time to properly finish his sentence before he leaned over and threw up all in the grass between his feet.

“Damn lightweight.” But Rick felt a hand giving him a few awkward pats on the back anyway. “I’ll get you some water.”

“Thanks,” Rick said, sitting back up. God, he felt a million times better. He half-crawled, half-scooted to a clean patch of grass away from the mess and waited.

“Here,” the guy said, thrusting a cup of water into his hands. “Daryl by the way. Daryl Dixon.”

“Rick Grimes,” he said weakly, taking a few sips of water. He swished some around in his mouth and spit it out.

“Shit. The damn sheriff’s kid?” Daryl asked.

“Shh. Don’t tell him,” Rick said.

Daryl laughed softly next to him and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Rick. I won’t.”

“How come you’re not drink…drunk?” Rick asked.

“I am drunk. I’m just not shitfaced like you are.”

Rick nodded. He had no idea that there was a difference. Then again, if he’d known he was drinking for the first time, maybe he could’ve paid attention to how he was feeling. And maybe he wouldn’t have been chugging every single cup of punch like it was water.

“You live close?” Daryl asked.

“Shit,” Rick said, leaning over onto Daryl because he didn’t think he could sit up on his own anymore. The other boy shifted awkwardly but didn’t make him move. “Daryl, I can’t go home like this.”

“Sure you can. Just gotta sneak in and go straight to bed. I do it all the time.”

Rick shook his head.

“Not in my house, Dare.”

“Daryl,” he corrected.

“What’d I say?” Rick asked, lazily turning his head a little more toward Daryl’s face. He decided it was a nice face. “Pretty. Your eyes. You have pretty eye. Eyes.”

“Never mind. Don’t matter,” Daryl said, ignoring the other comment entirely.

“Can I stay with you? It’s all your fault anyway. What’d you even put in the punch?” Rick let his eyes droop shut for a second and then forced them back open. Pretty. Pretty face.

“Moonshine. And I wasn’t plannin on goin home.”

“Where were you plannin?” Rick asked, reaching up to poke the mole above Daryl’s lip. That had to be the only reason to have a mole there, right? For poking?

“Stop,” Daryl said, pushing his hand away. “Fine, you can come. Was gonna sleep it off in my truck.”

“I gotta call and tell them I’m not… How drank… drink… drunk do I sound?” Rick tried to poke at the mole again and Daryl grabbed his wrist and held it down on top of his own thigh.

“Finish your water.”

Rick chugged the rest of it, trying not to think about the fact that his hand was trapped on Daryl’s leg. Why did that make him feel even warmer than the alcohol? And why did he kind of want to trade poking at his face for putting his mouth there and feeling the little bump with his lips? Hell, they’d only met when? Ten minutes ago?

“Let’s find you a phone.” Daryl stood up and took him by the elbow, leading him through the house and catching him before he could bump into door frames or furniture. They ended up in the kitchen a short while later, staring at a black rotary phone on the counter beside the fridge.

“Too loud in here,” Rick said. And like the universe was trying to prove his point, he had to yell the words at Daryl twice more before the other boy even heard them. Smiling, Daryl put up one finger and disappeared from the kitchen. A second later, the whole house plunged into an almost deafening silence, everything quiet save the ringing in his ears.   
  
Rick immediately dialed his number at home, told his mother he was staying with a friend knowing full welll that she’d assume he meant Shane. Then he hung up before he accidentally made two words into one and blew the whole thing.

Just in time too, because the music came blaring back to life about a second after he put the phone back on the receiver.

“C'mon,” Daryl said, grabbing him and pulling him toward the front door. “Pretty sure they know I unplugged it, and I wasn’t exactly invited.”

They were through the front yard and on the sidewalk a few seconds later. Behind them, Rick could still hear the music pumping. But it felt distant out in the night air, with Daryl’s heavy footsteps seemingly much more prevalent than the thumping beats of Billie Jean. Rick glanced over just in time to see the other boy licking the dryness away from his lips, and he promptly tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, narrowly missing face-planting on the concrete thanks to a strong arm around his middle.

“Remind me not to ever let you drink again,” Daryl said.

“Well maybe don’t get preople drunk, Dare,” Rick said, getting back on his feet, trying not to notice how the warmth of Daryl’s arm around his waist seemed to flow right to his stomach, settling there and twirling around his insides like a Ferris wheel on the fritz.

“Daryl,” he corrected.

“What’d I say?”

“Right up here,” Daryl said, pointing at a truck that was more rust than paint. When they got to it, Rick reached for the door handle, figuring they were going to splay out across the seat. He tried to ignore the part of him excited by the idea of having no choice but to sleep right against each other. But Daryl grabbed his hand and tugged it away.

“In the back,” he said, climbing up and over into the bed of the truck. Rick followed, holding Daryl’s hands to keep steady on the ascent.

Daryl had an old dingy mattress in the bed of his truck with a couple of quilts on top. It looked to Rick like he probably slept there often.

“Lay down so I can fix things up,” he said. And Rick did, falling back on the mattress and watching Daryl expertly spread a net over the top of the truck bed.

“What’s that for?”

“Keeps the mosquitoes from eating us alive.” Daryl settled down beside him and rolled one of the blankets up so they could use it as a makeshift pillow, nudging Rick’s head up to slide one end underneath it. He settled back onto the mattress too, and things fell silent for a while, nothing but their breathing and the cicadas and the gentle thump of music in the distance.

Rick tried his best to ignore how much he wanted to close the distance between them while he listened to each rise and fall of Daryl’s chest, each rustle of fabric with every subtle movement the other boy made. He’d never understood Shane’s obsession with putting his hands and mouth all over other people, but if this was how intense it felt to want to, maybe he could understand more than he realized. Rick turned onto his side, settling for staring at Daryl instead of touching him.

The other boy had his pretty blue eyes closed and both of his arms folded back up under his head, the position highlighting the muscle definition in his biceps. Rick wanted to lick each little dip and bulge of his skin. He’d never felt like this in his life, and he wondered what effect the alcohol was having exactly. Was he just growing up? Or was the moonshine making him want things he usually didn’t? 

“Thanks for lettin me sleep it off in your truck,” he said, already reaching to brush at one of the valleys on Daryl’s nearest bicep. He hesitated.

Daryl didn’t even open his eyes to answer. Didn’t even know Rick’s hand was hovering about an inch from him.

“Like you said, was my fault.”

“Mhm.” Rick gently touched, gliding two fingertips from elbow to armpit. One of Daryl’s eyebrows went up slightly, but he said and did nothing else. He didn’t even open his eyes.

“You buy it yourself?” Rick asked, letting his hand move over and trace the outlines of Daryl’s pectorals through his shirt.

“Sorta.”

“Sorta?”

“Helped out a bit at Kenny’s Auto,” Daryl said. “Had this old junker. Let me have it if I could fix it. Said I’d be doing him a favor gettin it out of his hair.”

“Nice of him,” Rick said, daring to move a little closer, letting one of his thighs settle against Daryl’s. To his surprise, Daryl shifted and let his own thigh press back against his.

“He’s a nice guy.”

“Sounds like it,” Rick said, leaning over Daryl’s face. There was that mole again, taunting him with how much he wanted to taste it. He leaned closer, steadily closing the gap. And when he was just about to get too close to look at the other boy without going cross-eyed, Daryl’s eyelids flew open. Rick froze, both terrified and mesmerized by what was beneath them. Even in the dark, Daryl’s eyes were dazzling.

“What are you doin?” Daryl asked, and Rick felt the other boy’s hand tracing up his side and his back. He shivered at the touch.

“I…don’t know.”  

“Mhm.” Daryl shut his eyes again. “Well, when you figure it out, let me know.”

Rick’s fuzzy brain took a second longer than he’d care to admit to process that information, to connect it with the fingers drawing little patterns on his spine. But he got there eventually. One deep breath, and he leaned down and brushed his mouth across the little brown bump before sliding his lips down on top of Daryl’s.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a quiet voice reminded him that this was his first real kiss. He just hoped he would remember it properly when the moonshine fog lifted. For good measure, Rick pulled away for a brief moment to try and cement everything solidly in his memory, and then he kissed Daryl again, pressing their lips gently together, adding more pressure until it felt just right. 

He tried to do what Shane did with his girlfriends, cautiously slipping his tongue into Daryl’s slightly open mouth. There was a little awkward dance, their muscles sliding across one another’s, and Rick finally got why his best friend was so damn obsessed with sticking his tongue into things. God, he could do this every day for the rest of his life.

“Think that’s the nicest anyone’s ever kissed me,” Daryl said, still tenderly rubbing Rick’s back. 

“Can I do it again?” Rick asked.

“Ain’t nothin better to do until we fall asleep.”

“I meant after tonight.”

Daryl scoffed.

“We’ll see how you feel when you’re not piss-ass drunk.”  

Rick contemplated that for a minute, and then he shrugged and leaned down to kiss Daryl again. They made out for what had to be about an hour before Rick noticed that Daryl was barely there anymore, his eyes opening less and less between kisses, his mouth getting lazier and sloppier with each passing second.

“Night, Dare,” Rick said, finally giving up and flopping over onto the mattress.

“Can hold me if you want,” Daryl murmured, rolling over onto his side. And Rick didn’t have to be told twice, scooting over and wrapping an arm around Daryl’s middle, pulling him close until his chest was flush with the other boy’s back.   
  
He pressed his nose into the shaggy dishwater blonde hair that just brushed the top of Daryl’s neck and inhaled. The boy smelled like wood smoke and salt, and Rick hoped those smells would somehow make it into his dreams. A bonfire on a beach maybe? Him and Daryl hunting crabs in the dark? He closed his eyes and burrowed deeper into the scent.

His last thought before he fell unconscious was that he hoped this wasn’t the last time he went to sleep like this. And that if moonshine-laced punch led him to first kisses with boys who smelled like comfort and possibility, then maybe he didn’t mind it so much.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Going through a divorce AU

It had been a shotgun wedding. Marlene had gotten pregnant after one of Merle’s house parties, and Daryl hadn’t had the heart to tell her he’d never touched her, that she’d been drugged up and drunk off her ass and he honestly had no idea whose the baby was. Besides, it wasn’t like he was gonna marry anyone else anyhow. He was gayer than a chorus line and too scared to tell anyone. Hadn’t even been able to get it up for her on their wedding night.   
  
When she’d left him two years later, the worst part was that she’d taken Katie with her. Wasn’t his, but she felt like it. And she’d just started calling him “daddy” too. All those whispered promises that he’d be a better father than his own seemed pointless now. 

Marlene had figured it out too. Two years without sex other than a few halfhearted mornings together thanks to morning wood, and she’d known. Had figured out Katie wasn’t his too.   
  
Took the one thing good he’d ever had in his life and he didn’t even have any legal right to get her back. Called him a fag on the way out the door. Shit icing on a shit cake.   
  
Why on earth that drove him to the gay bar two counties over, he didn’t know, but there he was, perched on a stool in the corner with a glass full of whiskey. It was his first time ever going to a gay bar, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. All the rainbow flags strung up on the wall–it was all a little too bright and cheery for his current mood.   
  
But there was alcohol, so he stayed.   
  
He finished his whiskey and was just about to mourn the emptiness of his glass and the loss of Marlene’s second income when another glass slid under his nose. He looked up and found a pair of blue eyes so striking that his heart did a little skip.   
  
“Looked like you could use another. May I?” The guy eyed the empty seat across from him. Daryl shrugged and he sat down.   
  
“You new here?” he asked.   
  
Daryl grunted the affirmative.   
  
“I’m Rick. Rick Grimes.”   
  
There was something familiar about that name. Daryl swirled his whiskey in his glass, his brow furrowed. Why did he know ‘Rick Grimes?’   
  
“You arrested my brother,” he said finally, the information from the article coming back to him. Idiot brother had been cooking up meth in the trailer he’d inherited from their old man. Nearly blew himself and Daryl’s favorite childhood dog up.   
  
“Hell,” Rick said. “Did I?”   
  
“Mhm. Not that I blame you.” 

“That’s a relief. Hate to strike out with the hottest guy at the bar before I even get the chance to try.”   
  
Daryl looked up from his whiskey and lost himself in a sea of blue again. The alcohol had hit him and he felt warm and little fuzzy. All he wanted now was to forget for a minute.. to forget tiny hands clenching his fingers, to forget the sound of a little girl’s laughter, to forget the snot stains on his shirt after a bad dream. He downed the rest of the whiskey and welcomed the distraction.    
  
“Ain’t true.”   
  
“Oh no, it is,” Rick said.   
  
“Nuh uh,” Daryl said, shaking his head. “Can’t be the hottest guy at this bar when I’m already lookin at him.”   
  
A smile spread slowly across the other man’s face, and Daryl felt true arousal for the first time in over two years.   
  
“Would it be entirely too forward if I asked you if you wanna get out of here?” Rick asked.   
  
Daryl looked around at all the bright colors, all of them seemingly taunting him in his misery. He shook his head, and stood up, shrugging on his leather jacket and dropping a tip on the table.   
  
“Think outta here is just what I need right now.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: falling in love with their best friend's partner AU

Shane had become Daryl’s friend in third grade. It had been an unlikely friendship—two boys from opposite sides of the proverbial tracks, but Daryl had asked about his black eye on the monkey bars, and it had all gone downhill from there.   
  
“I’m sposed to tell people I fell,” Shane said, leaning in and cupping his hand around Daryl’s ear before whispering, “but my momma did it.”   
  
What had possessed Shane to tell him of all people, Daryl had never known, but he’d lifted up his shirt and shown him one of his own scars, and they were friends from that moment on. 

They spent every bit of free time at school together, swapping war stories when there was one, talking to each other about boys and girls. Daryl was the first person Shane came out as bi too, and Daryl had told him he was gay in turn. They’d both taken an oath sealed in a pinky swear that they’d never tell. Neither of their parents would like it, and when their parents didn’t like something, well, they had more stories.

It was a good friendship. Shane kept Daryl from falling in with the wrong crowd in high school like his brother had years before him, and Daryl kept Shane from giving himself over to his darker side—that side that whispered to Daryl about what he would do to his mom if he thought he could get away with it, about what he would do if Daryl didn’t need him.   
  
“I’d slit her throat, Dare, I would.”   
  
“Can’t leave me though.”   
  
“Never.”   
  
They grew together, nurturing each other, and Daryl was pretty sure he’d be friends with Shane until the day he died. But sometimes “pretty sure” ain’t sure enough. And sometimes things change even when you’re certain they won’t.   
  
Rick Grimes turned heads from the second he walked through the doors of their high school. Everyone was clamoring to talk to the boy with the wavy hair and piercing blue eyes, everyone from the nerdy girl who got asked on dates as a cruel joke to little miss head cheerleader, Lori Hicks.   
  
But Shane and Daryl’s heads turned harder than the rest. They spent hours gushing over every inch of him. They’d sneak cigarettes behind the gym, going back and forth talking about Rick’s various body parts and every interaction with him in class and that special little way he said “things.” Shane would talk about pounding him against a wall. Daryl would talk about wrapping his legs around those gorgeous hips and hanging on for dear life.   
  
Like everything in else they’d done since 3rd grade, they fell in love with Rick together, leaning on one another in their despair over something they both figured was off limits. Another pinky swear, and they’d agreed that neither of them could have him even if they could.   
  
But Shane got Rick drunk at Lori’s homecoming party and pulled him into a closet. Shane got Rick drunk and groped him. Shane got Rick drunk and gave him a hand job. He told Daryl every sordid detail of it—didn’t even have the decency to cover up his betrayal.

“It was so smooth. And the sounds he made, Dare.” 

And then he and Rick started dating. Shane stopped spending time with him to be with the man they both loved. Daryl had no one to lean on, no one to help him carry the burden of watching his best friend betray him. He faded into the shadows in a cloud of cigarette smoke, loneliness, and dark glares.   
  
Shane had become Daryl’s best friend in third grade, but when he took Rick’s virginity on prom night, he killed their friendship and took the last piece of Daryl’s heart down with it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Meeting online AU

Daryl knew this was a bad idea as far as bad ideas went. Hell, it had been a bad idea every damn day he’d done it, but he couldn’t help himself as he slinked to the computer section of the public library, taking the one closest to the wall and booting it up.   
  
He logged into the chat room, the same one he’d been on every day for the past two weeks, and he waited, watching the names on the “who’s here” list growing and shrinking and growing and shrinking while he fidgeted in his chair, chewing on his tongue.

“BlueEyedDeputy” popped up on the list, and Daryl fought back a sigh. He glanced furtively around the library before daring to open up a PM, but there was a reason he came in at this hour—the computers were mostly free. No witnesses to his depravity. He started to click the button, but a PM interrupted him before he could start one himself. 

**BlueEyedDeputy** : hey you.

Daryl’s breath caught in his throat. He glanced around again and chastised himself. People were going to think he was looking up meth recipes or how to get away with murdering the president or something. 

**CrossbowCutie** : hey yourself  
 **BlueEyedDeputy** : thought about what I asked you?  
 **CrossbowCutie** : mhm…  
 **BlueEyedDeputy** : well? 

Daryl took a more subtle look around. Coast still clear. Well, here goes everything.   
  
 **CrossbowCutie** : yeah…wanna see.  
 **BlueEyedDeputy** : my pleasure, darlin

A little grey progress bar popped up almost immediately. Daryl licked his lips and willed the bar to move faster, his heart pounding in his chest. Finally it reached the end, and he clicked to view the upload. As soon as it opened, he felt all of the air leave his lungs. There was BlueEyedDeputy in his uniform, his shirt wide open, his pants undone and his erection sticking out through the open zipper. Everything but his face. Daryl squirmed in the squeaky computer chair. 

**CrossbowCutie** : fuck.   
 **BlueEyedDeputy** : like it? ;)  
 **CrossbowCutie** : u sure u wanna do this? think u might be outta my league  
 **BlueEyedDeputy** : still at the library?  
 **CrossbowCutie** : yeah y?   
 **BlueEyedDeputy** : I can pick you up in 10

Fuck fuck fuck. Daryl wiped his palms on his jeans. He could do this. He could DO this. He typed “yes” and closed his eyes tightly before hitting send. There, done. No taking it back now. 

**BlueEyedDeputy** : Pretty sure you’ll recognize the car

And then he was gone. Daryl took one last look at the photo, and then he shut everything down, meticulously erasing the history and making sure there was no trace of what he’d done for anyone to find.

He paced back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the library, the sun feeling a lot warmer on the back of his neck than usual. Fuck. His mind kept traveling back to that photo, to the sculpted chest, to that perfect cock that he was going to get to see in person… way too soon actually. God.. GOD.   
  
Right when he was sure he was going to die from his thoughts alone, a squad car pulled up in front of him and stopped. Daryl took several deep breaths and waited as the door opened and a man stood up out of the driver’s seat. He took one look at the guy in the uniform, at that little brush of stubble on his chin, at that hair that looked like it belonged in a damn advertisement inside a GQ.   
  
Holy. Fucking. Shit.

“Are you who I’m looking for?” the man asked, tilting his head and quirking one eyebrow.

Jesus Christ, I fucking hope so. 

“I… I’m..” Daryl looked away blinking rapidly, because damn it was like trying to stare at the sun.

“Do you like to bow hunt?” he asked, and Daryl had never heard such an innocuous question sound so filthy. He nodded.   
  
“That for me?” he asked, glancing down at Daryl’s crotch. Daryl glanced down too, his cheeks immediately getting twenty degrees warmer. His brain had been going so haywire that he hadn’t even noticed his own steadily growing erection. Shit, Barnum and Bailey could’ve fucking set up a damn three-ring in his jeans.  
  
Daryl nodded again. Why wasn’t his mouth working? Words, Daryl, use your words. 

“Are you real?” Noooo, what the FUCK? Not those words. No, no, no. 

The man smiled and laughed softly, and then he popped open the passenger side door. 

“Get in and find out.”

Daryl took a deep breath and climbed in. 

Well, here goes everything. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Two miserable people meeting at a wedding AU

Shane’s wedding. God, why had Rick even come to this? It sure as hell wasn’t for the open bar, though at least that was easing his pain. It had been years since he and Shane had been anything special, years since he took a job at the Atlanta PD and left Rick back in their hometown with Leon Basset of all people for a partner.   
  
But there would always be a little bit of a hole in Rick’s heart left by the other man. And now here he was, sitting in the reception watching him dance with some blonde lawyer he’d met in the city.   
  
“Thought that was you,” said a gruff voice, and Daryl Dixon plopped down into a chair next to him, an entire bottle of champagne in his hand. “Don’t know what he invited all the exes for. Saw Lori too.”   
  
“Better question is why did we come?” Rick asked.   
  
Daryl scoffed. “I came for the cake, Rick. Obviously,” he said. He glared over at the three-tiered white monstrosity. “But no one bothered to put in the invitation that the bride was some goody-two-shoes health nut who can’t even cut loose on her weddin day.”   
  
“It wasn’t that bad,” Rick said, looking down at his plate where he’d mostly just broken the whole thing down into little crumbs and pushed them around with his fork. There were seeds and grains in it, and he was pretty sure some were still stuck in his teeth. He licked at them with his tongue.   
  
“C'mon,” Daryl said, getting up and swaying a bit on his feet. He took another drink.   
  
“C'mon where?” Rick asked.   
  
“I don’t know. Anywhere but here.”   
  
Anywhere but here ended up being the swimming pool at the hotel where the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Walsh were holding their reception. Rick wrinkled his nose at the intense smell of chlorine and sat down on one of the pool chairs, grabbing the champagne from Daryl and taking a long swig.   
  
“Hey, I had to bat my eyelashes at that bartender for a good five minutes for that bottle, Rick Grimes.”   
  
“Sorry. Want me to bat my eyelashes at you? Fair trade?”   
  
“Hell, be the best action I’ve had in years,” Daryl said. “Go ahead.”   
  
Rick rolled his eyes and gave Daryl a little flutter. Daryl made a little pfft noise and looked around at their surroundings, sighing.    
  
“Fuck it,” he said.   
  
Rick didn’t get a chance to ask “fuck what?” because Daryl kicked off his shoes and pulled his polo shirt up over his head. Rick swallowed harder than he should have.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s a pool.” He shrugged, and pulled off his starched jeans, revealing skin-tight navy boxer-briefs. Rick licked his lips.

“What you lookin at, Rick Grimes?” Daryl asked. Rick found his eyes, and Daryl smirked down at him. “Guess that’d be a way to pay him back for invitin us. Fuck me on a pool chair outside the reception.”

Rick took another big swig of champagne and stood up himself, slipping out of his suit jacket and starting on the buttons of his own shirt. Daryl smiled.

“You gettin in the pool too or are you agreein to fuck me on the pool chair?”

Rick shook his head and shoved Daryl into the water.

“Oughtta splash pool water all on your fancy suit for that,” he said after he popped back up, coughing just a little.

“Rather you not since it’s a rental.” Rick finished folding the pants up and laying them over the chair, and then he turned to the pool.

“Like the choice of boxers. They just scream ‘watching my ex marry some woman who apparently hates cake.‘”

Rick looked down and then back at Daryl.

“Got something against Batman?”

“I said I liked them, Rick. Now get your bat-ass in the pool.”

Rick dove in, forcing his eyes open in the water and finding Daryl’s ankle. He grabbed it and pulled him under. There was a bit of a fight under the surface, the two of them rolling around together, laughing out bubbles, and then they came up, gasping for breath.

“Dick move, Rick.”

“You’re the one who wanted to fool around.”

“Am I?” Daryl asked, moving a little closer in the water, his chest pressing against Rick’s.

“Daryl.”

“Rick.”

There was a glint of something mischievous in Daryl’s eye, and Rick’s stomach did a little somersault. He was just about to close the distance between them when Daryl popped up and put his hand on stop of his head, shoving him back underwater. Rick barely had time to suck in a breath.

“Little shit,” Rick said, whipping water out of his curls. Daryl tried to swim away, almost managed it with his natural swimmer’s build, but Rick had about half a bottle less of champagne on him. He managed to catch up to the other man, pinning him into the corner of the pool. Then he held him there with his body and splashed water up into his face with his hand. Daryl shook it away like a Labrador.  

“Well…?” Daryl asked, blinking the rest of the water out of his eyes when he finally stopped. “What’s your next move, Rick Grimes?”

Rick stared at him. He glanced back at the champagne, wishing that he was at least twice as drunk as he was. But he couldn’t reach it without getting out. Daryl eased his arms up onto his shoulders, and Rick looked back at him.

“Go on,” Daryl said. “We both want you to.”

Rick slipped one hand around Daryl’s waist and held onto the side of the pool with the other. Three pounding heartbeats in his chest and he had leaned forward, so close he could feel the warmth of Daryl’s lips radiating against his own. He tested the way it felt, brushing their lips together before turning it into a full kiss.

And damn could Daryl kiss. It was as soft and fluid as the water around them, their lips moving together, their tongues tasting one another, flavors edged with champagne and a faint hint of chlorine. He pulled Daryl tighter against him and lost himself in the feeling of the other man’s fingers raking through his hair, taking a handful of wet curls in his fist.

By the time he pulled away, it was like Shane had never mattered at all.

“I really hope you’re plannin on takin me home after this,” Daryl said.

“Can’t really let you drive, can I?” Rick asked.

He kissed Daryl again and again before they both forced themselves out of the pool, and then they stole hotel towels and tiptoed out to his car in their underwear.

“You know,” Daryl said, reclining the passenger seat and resting his head on a rolled up towel. “You might just be better than real cake.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Teacher/parent AU

Daryl’s day had been pretty shit so far. Then again, his entire life had been pretty shit so far, he figured. It was one shit episode after another shit episode. A whole damn series of shit that wasn’t even fit to be binge-watched on Netflix.

“Fuck him,” he muttered, walking down the side walk, each footstep hitting the concrete a little harder than necessary. A guy he thought he liked at least a little had just pushed him out of his car on the corner before they even made it to the restaurant. No reason given. Just wasn’t good enough, he guessed. And hell, Daryl had even pulled out his good shirt for him—the one he reserved for job interviews and funerals. 

Asshole could have at least let him get a bite to eat first. Last fucking time he played on Craigslist, that was for sure.

Daryl’s stomach grumbled loudly in agreement, and he kept walking, hoping he’d see somewhere with a phone soon so he could call his asshole brother to come pick him up and drive him to McDonald’s or something.

Up ahead, he could see lights on at his old elementary school. There were several cars parked in the lot across the street. He wondered what they were doing, maybe a play or something? But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the doors were open and that he knew where the front office was even though he hadn’t been inside in years. 

In, phone call, out. That was his plan at least, until he smelled something heavenly wafting out of the front doors. His stomach grumbled again. Maybe it was a bake sale? 

He quickly did a mental inventory of all the cash in his wallet. No, he definitely couldn’t afford a bake sale.

He walked up to the front doors, ready to do his business and get gone before he made a mistake a bought a whole pie or something. But he accidentally made eye contact with a lady at a little table right inside the door, and she smiled at him. 

“Are you here for parent/teacher night?” she asked.   
  
Daryl looked around. Almost everyone looked like him clothes-wise, casual with an edge of class. Most people didn’t even have their kids with them. He took another inhale, the gears in his head slowly grinding into place.   
  
“What’s that smell?”   
  
“The buffet dinner the PTA put on,” she said with a touch of confusion. “It was on the invitations the school sent home.”   
  
“Right,” Daryl said. “But somethin smells real good.”   
  
“Oh, that’s probably Janet’s famous peach cobbler. Won a blue ribbon at the county fair this year.”   
  
Daryl nodded.   
  
“Yeah, yeah I’m here for the, uh, parent/teacher thing.”   
  
“Great,” she said with a smile. “Here’s a map of where all the teachers’ classrooms are located so you can find the ones your child has.” She thrust a little paper into his hand.   
  
“Thanks,” Daryl said, already on a new mission. Free buffet, phone call, get the hell out before anyone realized he didn’t have a kid.   
  
He followed his nose to the smell and loaded up a plate with everything from cocktail wienies to mac-n-cheese to that heavenly cobbler. And he had to hand it to the PTA, he thought, biting into homemade lasagna. They really knew how to put on a good buffet.  
  
He polished off his plate quickly and stole a fresh roll before heading for the office, averting his eyes from teachers standing outside of their classroom doors lest one of them try to start a conversation about his nonexistent kid.   
  
“Daryl Dixon?”   
  
Daryl stopped, his mouth full of bread. He turned slowly, trying to finish chewing on the large bite in his mouth, and then he very nearly choked on it.   
  
“Rick Grimes?” he asked, forcing himself to swallow. Rick had been his crush all four years of high school. He hadn’t seen the man since graduation. And now, there he was, dressed in a blue blazer, leaning casually against the wall. Fuck, he was even more gorgeous now than he was twenty years ago. Nostalgia and arousal fought a little war in Daryl’s stomach before deciding to team up and fuck him up completely.   
  
“Didn’t know you had a child here,” Rick said. “You didn’t really seem the type…”   
  
“Yeah, well…”   
  
“Guess I haven’t met them yet or you would’ve stopped in. Surprised I haven’t heard of a Dixon coming through though. Kind of thing people would talk about.”   
  
“Yeah, well… it, uh,  _he_  has his momma’s name. Didn’t wanna pass on the reputation, you know?”   
  
“What’s his name?”  
  
“His name?” Daryl asked, panicking a little. Shit, his plan had really not accounted for this. “Uh, Hunter. Hunter, um, Cross.”   
  
Rick furrowed his brow and tilted his head.   
  
“Uh huh.”   
  
Daryl swallowed and wiped his palms on his jeans. How was he supposed to lie to those eyes? God, how could those eyes still be screwing with him twenty years after he thought he was over them?  
  
“Fuck.”   
  
“This is an elementary school, Daryl,” Rick teased, but there hadn’t been anyone close enough to them to hear Daryl swear. “Hell, you’re trembling. Why are you so nervous?”   
  
Daryl sighed and grabbed Rick, pushing him into his classroom and pulling the door shut. He looked a little surprised but didn’t stop him.

“This isn’t really that kind of parent/teacher conference, Daryl,” Rick said. “And I think you’d wanna try to seduce someone Hunter actually has for class.” 

“Real funny, Rick. Look, I don’t really have a kid,” Daryl said.   
  
“You don’t have…” Rick considered the information, and Daryl had a sudden fit of paranoia. What if Rick thought he was some kind of pervert? But an amused smile spread across Rick’s features, wrinkling up the corners of his eyes. “Daryl, did… Did you gate crash a parent/teacher night?”   
  
Daryl looked down. Fuck, he really had.   
  
“I didn’t mean to.”   
  
Rick sat down on top of his desk and laughed softly, shaking his head.   
  
“I was talkin to this guy online. Picked me up for the date, didn’t like me after a few minutes I guess and instead of takin me back home, he dropped me on the curb a couple blocks up.” Daryl shook his head. “Hell, I was just gonna use the phone, but I smelled  _Janet’s famous peach cobbler_  and…”

“Hunter Cross,” Rick said, laughing even harder. “God, it’s funny how much you don’t realize you miss someone until you see ‘em.”   
  
“Fuck you. That cobbler smells like damn angel piss.”   
  
“Tastes like it too,” Rick said, glancing at a plate of something wrapped in brown paper towel on his desk. “So are you out or?”   
  
“Out?” Daryl asked.   
  
“Said you were on a date with a guy. I kind of figured in high school, but I knew you’d never say anything then.”   
  
“You knew?” Daryl asked. Shit, did that mean he knew about his massive crush too? And why was that embarrassing him  _now_?   
  
“Yeah. Caught you staring at, hell, what was that guy’s name? Basketball captain. Real cute. Those honey brown eyes.”   
  
“James Warner?” Daryl had forgotten all about James. But yeah, he’d looked at him a few times if he thought back on it. Passing glances and a few fleeting fantasies. But nothing like the painful ache in his chest Rick gave him. No, not gave. Had given. Rick didn’t give him anything anymore. Right?   
  
“Mhm. Saw you lookin at him once or twice. Damn, I remember wishin you’d look at me like that. Probably drove Shane up the wall talkin about you so much.”   
  
What? Daryl went wide-eyed. Seriously, what? His knees practically gave way, and he had to fall down into one of the too-small desks to keep from falling down period.   
  
“You… you…” His heart hammered more wildly in his chest than he even thought it could. He couldn’t even remember the last time it had done that. Maybe when he’d caught a glimpse of Rick on his way to the senior prom?   
  
“Had a huge crush on you, yeah.”   
  
The past twenty years flew through Daryl’s mind in a flash. Could he have spent them all with… God, why did his chest hurt so much at the idea of not knowing? He’d been over this for _decades_. Hadn’t he?   
  
“Why didn’t you  _say_  something?” He put his face in his hands, imagining a life where he and Rick had a place together, where he’d spent the last twenty years waking up in his arms instead of getting kicked out of cars on the side of the road like highway litter.

“Daryl are you okay? 

“No.”   
  
“Sorry,” Rick said, hopping down off his desk and squatting down in front of the one Daryl currently occupied. “Did I make you feel awkward?”   
  
“I was so damn in love with you,” Daryl said, the sound muffled against his palms.

“What? In high school?” 

“Mhm.”

“Shit. When?” Rick asked, running his fingers back through his hair. Daryl remembered loving him even when he’d let his curls turn into a giant poof back in tenth grade. But this hair… God, why did he want to touch it? Why was he feeling this way again? Like the past twenty years had faded away and he was a teenager again desperately wanting to kneel at the altar of Rick Grimes.

“All of it.”

“The whole time?” Rick asked. 

“Yes.”   
  
“God, why didn’t either of us-” There was a light tap at the door, and then a lady in a cardigan opened it up. Rick murmured something like “Damn’t, not right now.”   
  
“Sorry, I’m Emma Quinn, Rayden’s mom. Should I come back later?”   
  
“Nah,” Daryl said, standing up. He needed to get out of there anyway. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t handle his heart trying to feel things again that he’d thought were long-dead. “Need to get goin. Thanks for the suggestions on, um, Hunter’s homework.”   
  
“Da- Mr. Dixon, wait,” Rick said, catching up to him and stopping him with a hand on his arm. He pulled a card out of his jacket pocket and pushed it into Daryl’s palm. It was a business card made of laminated computer paper, and Daryl figured it was something the school had made up themselves for the occasion.   
  
Rick lowered his voice.   
  
“Coffee. Tomorrow morning. Call or text me and tell me where’s best for you.” Daryl nodded dismissively and started to walk away again, but Rick caught him once more. “I mean it, Daryl. Us seeing each other like this has to mean something. Let’s not screw it up again.”   
  
Daryl couldn’t bring himself to look at him. Instead he folded his hands over the card and walked out, heading for the office and wondering if maybe twenty years wasn’t really as long ago as it had seemed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Parents meeting when they take their kids to class AU.

Daryl had a headache that felt like freight train. Not a fast-moving freight train either, no. This was a freight train going at snail speed when you’re at the damn crossing thirty minutes late for work. It slowly burrowed its way into his skull, wheels screeching the entire time.   
  
The freight train was Merle’s kid. His mom had OD’d when he was little, and Merle had been shipped off to prison about two weeks ago for cooking. Daryl had the only clean record in the whole family, which meant that his brother had crawled to him when it happened. He had begged him, reminding him what the “system” was like from the days they’d spent in it after their dad’s death.

And so Daryl had agreed to take the kid in, let the CPS lady come scrutinize his house and examine every aspect of his life. He’d thrown a fire extinguisher up in the kitchen to appease her, and then the kid had been dropped on his doorstep a few days later with a ton of rules but no instructions. 

God, and he was definitely Merle’s damn kid. A little ball of violent energy that Daryl hadn’t even begun to figure out how to control. 

“I. Want. McDonald’s.” The kid started hollering in the rear of the car, violently kicking the back of Daryl’s seat so hard that he lurched forward with each one.   
  
“Stop.”

“McDonald’s McDonald’s McDonald’s.” The words turned into a little chant, and Daryl briefly questioned his personal rule not to lay a hand on the child for discipline, not that the state would let him anyway. Christ. He white-knuckled the steering wheel, kneading the leather with his hands.

“Brantley, stop before Uncle Daryl has a car wreck.”

“I want McDonald’s!” He screamed, the sound shrill and piercing. Daryl jumped and very nearly rammed the car up the ass of the semi in front of them. 

“Fine. Okay. Okay.” The kid had to eat breakfast anyway. It was his first day of school, and Daryl was more than happy about the reprieve. He hated it, hated that little part of his brain that said, “he’s someone else’s problem for a little while.” But damn, he needed a fucking break.   
  
“Now.”   
  
“There isn’t one right now. Do you see a McDonald’s right now?”   
  
“Now!”   
  
Daryl bit his tongue, his whole body shaking from stress and frazzled nerves. He knew there was one coming up. He just had to hold on a little bit longer.   
  
Finally, the golden arches appeared, and Daryl whipped his car into parking lot and the drive thru.   
  
“Bacon McGriddle.”   
  
“No,” Daryl said. He had a feeling letting the kid have exactly what he wanted would only make things worse. That, and, that wasn’t exactly a healthy breakfast. 

“I wanna damn McGriddle!” 

Daryl’s eyes went wide and he turned around in the seat, putting up his finger and looking at the kid sternly.   
  
“You’ll get what I get you, and you better watch your mouth.”   
  
He pulled up to the speaker, the kid trying to holler over him the whole time. He thought briefly about getting him fruit and yogurt, but he didn’t want anything he could splatter all over his car, which was exactly the kind of thing he would do. God, he was going to whoop Merle’s ass when he got out? How did he let it get this bad?

He ordered Brantley apple slices and a chocolate milk, and mercifully, he shut up the rest of the ride to the school. 

Or at least it had seemed merciful. As soon as they pulled in the parking lot, Daryl found himself wishing that he’d worn himself out some more on the ride there.   
  
“You can’t make me, Uncle Daryl! You can’t make me!”   
  
Daryl fought to pull him out of his booster seat, and he’d never felt so close to crying in years, not since that time his dad had gone after his dog instead of him. Brantley kicked and screamed, the treads of his shoes catching Daryl on the cheek and making the skin there burn.  
  
“Stop. Please, Brantley. Please, stop.”  
  
All around him, people were looking at him, judging him. But hell, how was he supposed to figure out how to be a parent in two weeks?   
  
Finally he managed to liberate him from the car, and he carried his shrieking, flailing mess of a kid toward the front door, very nearly dropping him twice.   
  
“Please stop,” Daryl begged. “Please.”   
  
“I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go!”   
  
“Excuse me…” The voice was soft and soothing, and Daryl turned toward it to find a man in simple black jeans and a tee shirt holding a little boy’s hand.   
  
“Yeah?” Daryl asked, and even he could hear the desperation in his own voice. Brantley must have been curious, because he had gone still in his arms. Daryl set him down and took his hand a little tighter than most people would. But it wouldn’t have been the first time he slipped away and took off running. Damn, he was fast.   
  
The older man squatted down and looked at him. Daryl noticed the way his jeans hugged his thighs when he did it, and then he realized he really must be exasperated, because he was only just noticing the dark wavy hair and blue eyes… There was something about that jawline too, gorgeously speckled with salt and pepper stubble.   
  
“Why don’t you wanna go to school?” the other man asked calmly.   
  
Brantley glared at him, and Daryl could see so much of both him and his brother there. Him against the world. He was too young to feel that way already.    
  
“Everybody hates me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” the man said. “Have you met my son, Carl?” 

He pulled the little boy forward.   
  
“It’s his first day here, and I bet if you show him where a few things are, he might just let you be his first friend.” 

Brantley narrowed his eyes at the other man and then looked at the little boy. 

“That true?”   
  
Carl seemed to chew it over, but he nodded in the end.   
  
“But no yelling,” Carl said.   
  
Brantley stared between the little boy and his father, and then he sighed.   
  
“Fine. C'mon.” He took him by the arm and led him inside, leaving both men to follow behind them as they hiked up the front stairs, already talking to each other about their homeroom teacher. When they were safely tucked inside their classroom, Daryl and the other man walked back out side-by-side.   
  
The whole thing should have wounded him, but Daryl didn’t have any pride left, all of it worn away by days that left him feeling like he wanted to crawl right out of his skin and die.   
  
“How did you do that?” Daryl asked.   
  
“Don’t be too impressed,” he said. “Only works when they’re actually yellin for a reason. His dad make you babysit this morning or something?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Heard him call you uncle.”   
  
“Oh, no, he’s… mine for now, I guess.”   
  
The man nodded, his hair catching the gold tones in the early morning sun.   
  
“Rick, by the way. Rick Grimes.”   
  
“Daryl Dixon.” They shook hands.   
  
“Catch you around, Daryl,” he said before heading back to his car. He was halfway across the front lawn before Daryl’s exhausted, throbbing brain told him that he couldn’t let him just walk off like that.    
  
“Hey, wait.”

Rick turned around, walking backwards while Daryl jogged back up to him.

“Look, it’s only been a couple weeks, and there wasn’t exactly a user’s manual. Do you… Would it be weird if we… I don’t know, had lunch or something? Give me some tips? I’m so damn tired.”

“Sure,” he said. “New in town anyway. Wife kept the house and all our friends. Maybe I could use a new one too.” 

Daryl sighed in relief. Any wisdom this man could give him, he would take it. They traded numbers, plugging them into their cell phones, and then Rick said he had to get going or he’d be late for his new job.  
  
“First tip though,” he said, opening up his car door. “Being tired is normal.” He winked and slipped down into the driver’s seat, and Daryl couldn’t help but stare until the car was long-gone. Maybe he could handle this single parent thing after all.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: One of them being diagnosed with a terminal illness AU.

Rick hated this part of the job. There was nothing worse than having to tell a person that their worst fears were true, than having to tell them their time was almost up. Well, nothing worse except having to do it with someone he knew.   
  
He stared down at Daryl Dixon’s name on the chart and tried to remember the first time he’d ever seen him. He’d gotten thrown into their school sometime in junior high after statewide redistricting. Seventh grade maybe?   
  
He’d been a loner, one of those kids you never saw on the basketball court or the makeshift football field at recess. He’d scarfed down his lunches in the corner of the cafeteria, and then disappear right after to nobody-knew-where. The pattern went on for years until someone dared Rick to actually talk to him. 

And then somewhere in the middle of a strained conversation, he’d realized Daryl deserved more. He’d pulled them into their little fold, and even though Daryl never fully warmed up to everyone, by graduation, Rick felt like he belonged a little more. 

Years of college and med school and they grew apart, but now here he was, face-to-face with that name again, the whole universe issuing him one big horrible dare.   
  
He covered his eyes with one hand and sighed deeply. Why this? Why him? Why not someone who actually deserved to die? Why, still, was the universe insistent on giving Daryl the short end of the stick?   
  
“It’s like you always told me,” Michonne said, leaning against the door frame of the staff lounge. “The sooner you tell them, the longer they have.”

Rick nodded and closed the folder around the chart, steeling his nerves and walking to Daryl’s room. 

“Hey, you,” Daryl said with a fuzzy little smile. Rick had prescribed a morphine drip to help ease the lingering pain of Daryl’s rattling cough. At least that seemed to have taken effect.

“Hey,” Rick said, taking the chair and pulling it up beside his bed. “How are you feeling?” 

“Better. Thanks for takin care of me, Rick.” Daryl blinked happily at him. “You’ve always been good at that.” 

Please, God. Not him.

“Anything else that would help make you more comfortable?” 

“Nah. Pillows are fluffed and I’ve got the best doctor in town.”   
  
Don’t do this. Hell, you can have me. Just not him.  
  
“How’s it look?”

There it was. The question that meant Rick could no longer stave off the inevitable. But Michonne was right. The sooner he told him, the sooner Daryl could enjoy what was left. And there was a small chance… a very small chance. But who was he kidding? Rick knew the prognosis from here. It would have to be a real honest-to-God miracle. He cleared his throat to keep from losing his composure.

“Not good, Daryl.”

“Oh.” 

There was a quiet moment while Rick tried to bring himself to say the rest of information. He could have let someone else do it, but he didn’t want Daryl to have to hear this from a stranger, not when he didn’t have to. His throat ached that special way it does when one’s trying not to cry.   
  
“I’m gonna die, aren’t I?” Daryl asked. “That why you look so sad?”   
  
Rick spoke. He tried to keep his tone even, tried to pretend this was like the hundreds of other times he’d said things like this, but he couldn’t. His voice cracked every other word and he stumbled through the whole diagnosis.   
  
“You have lung cancer, but it’s already spread. It’s in your spine.”

“How long?” Daryl asked, his morphine-induced smile gone.

Rick sucked in a deep breath. 

“Six months. Maybe. There are some treatments we can try.”

“Would they work?”

“Maybe,” Rick said. But he knew the better answer was probably no. He wiped a few tears out of his eyes and cursed them for daring to escape.

“Be honest with me, Rick,” Daryl said. “Would I just be making myself miserable until I died anyway? Cuz if there’s luck involved, I ain’t gonna come out on top. We both know that.”

“It’d be a slim chance,” Rick nodded. “Very slim.”

“Would you do it?” Daryl asked.

“What?”

“Knowin what you know and all… If you were me, would you try it?” 

“No,” Rick said. “I’d sell everything I could, cash out my savings, and enjoy what’s left. Make sure everyone important knew I loved ‘em and that everything would be as easy for them after as it could be.”

Daryl nodded, taking in a labored breath. 

“Guess you better get me out of here as soon as you can. No time to waste and all that.”   
  
“Daryl I’m… I’m sorry I…”

“Sorry you what, Rick? You didn’t give me cancer.”

“If you need anything, Dare. Or if you change your mind. I’ll fight as hard for you as I can, however you want me to.” His eyes were hot and burning, and he thought about just taking the next few months off. He could be there for Daryl on the worst days, handle them properly. He could help the other man cross as much off his bucket list as he could.

Daryl nodded. 

“Somethin you should know, Rick.” 

“I’m listening.”

“I paid Jacob Mitchell $5 to make that dare.”

“What?”

“First time you ever talked to me… It was cuz I wanted you to.”

Rick cracked a strained smile. 

“Why didn’t you just come talk to me yourself?” he asked.   
  
“Tried. But every time I thought about it, I got all nervous. Hell, and you’re even prettier now.”

“Wait, you had a crush on me?” Rick asked. He reached over and took Daryl’s hand, though he wasn’t sure why. God, it was so cold. He rubbed it between his own to try and put a little warmth back in the other man’s fingertips.

“Think I’ve always had a crush on you, Rick Grimes. Got worse when I really got to know you.” Daryl chewed on the nails of his other hand, a familiar habit that Rick was surprised he’d missed. “Never went too long without thinkin about you even after you ran off to school.”

“I should’ve stayed in touch with you better.”

“Don’t matter. We got to see each other again 'fore it was all over,” Daryl said. “Got to hear it from you instead of some asshole who probably thinks it’s a good thing I’m goin. Least you care.”

Rick nodded, and then he covered his eyes with his hand and started sobbing, fighting against every tear wrenching itself from his body, giving himself ten seconds to regain control. When he was done, he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his white coat.

“Think I’m gonna take some time off,” he said weakly.  

“Don’t gotta,” Daryl said.

“You kiddin?” Rick teased. “All that cool shit you’re gonna be doin and you think I’m gonna let you have all the fun?”

Daryl turned his hand over in Rick’s and gave a weak squeeze.

“Sounds like I already got the thing I always wanted most then.”

“What’s that?” Rick asked. 

“To spend the rest of my life with you.”   
  
Rick stared down at the other man for a little while, his cheeks more hollow than Rick remembered them being. He reached over and swept some hair out of Daryl’s face.   
  
“I’m gonna get your release papers drawn up and get some prescriptions sent in. You try to get some rest.”

“No offense, Rick, but I wanna be awake for as much of this as I can.” 

“You push yourself too hard, and you’re gonna be down for days, maybe weeks at a time when you crash. But I didn’t say sleep, I said rest.” Rick picked up the TV remote and moved it closer. “I’ll be driving you home tonight.”

Daryl didn’t argue. Rick waited to make sure he was settled back under his blankets and comfortable, and then he went to start making arrangements. Everything he could do. He couldn’t fix what was broken, but he could make the end better than the rest had been.

Not good enough, but it was everything he had to give. He let himself cry for ten more seconds, and then he got to work.


	9. Champagne Kisses

Maggie counted the loudest, flanked on either side by Tara and Rosita, all three spouting numbers with vibrant smiles, mismatched cups of champagne poised in their hands.   
  
“Ten, nine, eight!”   
  
Daryl looked down at his little coffee mug of bubbly. An already-wasted Carol had handed it to him with a giggle. “#1 Grandma,” Daryl read, fighting a smile that pulled at the corners of his drink-loosened lips.   
  
“Seven, six, five!” 

He couldn’t believe the Alexandrians had kept track of dates and time both, but they had. Christmas had been a shock after the war, to find wreaths and trees strewn amongst the wreckage. New Year’s was a little easier, less pressure, less decorating. But actually being able to count down to the exact moment was something he still never would’ve thought possible that many years after the end.  
  
“Four, three, two!”   
  
Cheers of “Happy New Year” erupted around him. He downed his mug of champagne. And then, just like that, his entire group started pairing off. He watched Tara grab Denise and dip her, both of them ultimately tumbling to the ground together in a heap of laughter. Maggie gripped Glenn’s cheeks with both hands. Aaron’s lips found Eric’s. Abraham found Sasha. Michonne and Rosita looked at each other, shrugged, and gave each other a quick friendly peck on the lips.   
  
Right around the time Carol gave Eugene a kiss on the cheek, Daryl started remembering why he always hated the holiday. Just like Valentine’s Day, it reminded that him that he was alone. Different and alone. A freak, his daddy had called him. And maybe he’d stopped believing most of Will Dixon’s lies since he found his true family, but that one stuck. That one, he knew was true. As much as he fit in, he’d never quite be like the others. Not enough for any of them to want him like that. Especially not..  
  
“Shit, did I miss it?” Rick asked quietly, stepping through the door frame and finding Daryl leaning against the wall next to it. “Couldn’t get Judy to lay back down.” Daryl’s stomach flip-flopped at his voice, at the proximity of him. He tried to ignore it.   
  
“You didn’t miss nothin. Countin. Drinkin. A bunch of people shovin their tongues down each other throats. Usual shit.”   
  
“Guess I can go ahead and drink this then,” Rick said, holding up his mug. “I ♥ My Grandpa!” Carol had had way too much damn fun on champagne duty.   
  
“Guess so.”   
  
“Well, Auld Lang Syne and all that shit,” Rick said, raising his cup before tilting his head back and pouring in the contents. He lowered the mug and gave Daryl a small goofy smile, one edged with alcohol and sleepiness.    
  
“What you lookin at me like that for?”   
  
Rick tilted his head this way and that, making Daryl feel uncomfortable, scrutinized.   
  
“Rick...”  
  
“Say, Daryl... who shoved their tongue down _your_ throat?”    
  
Daryl crossed his arms.   
  
“Nobody.”   
  
“Good.” And before Daryl could properly react or even process, Rick snaked a hand around his neck and pulled him into a kiss, plunging his tongue into his mouth. It tasted like champagne and the rum punch they’d been drinking all night. Daryl moaned without even thinking about how he shouldn’t. About how it was just a traditional thing that probably meant nothing. About how his family were all there and would know for sure he was queer. Then again, they’d accepted Aaron and Tara well enough.   
  
It took an over-the-top gagging sound followed by “Gross, dad” to get Rick to finally pull away.   
  
Daryl waited for Rick to say something, for him to apologize to his son, for him to wish Daryl a Happy New Year and then never mention the moment again. But it was Carol who broke the silence instead.    
  
“Well, it’s about damn time.”   
  
“Time for what?” Daryl asked, which sent half the room into a fit of giggles.   
  
“For you and Rick to stop dancin around each other like a couple of damn ballerinas and get the hell on with it,” Abraham grunted.   
  
“For...for me AND Rick?” Daryl looked to Rick, squinting at him, questioning and examining him with his eyes. Rick gave him the tiniest tilt of his head. A nod. A confirmation.   
  
Well, fuck me.   
  
Almost immediately, Daryl wanted to bolt, to have time to think and deal with the information far away from prying eyes. Like he sensed it, Rick put a hand on his shoulder, an anchor to steady him. He leaned forward, finding Daryl’s eyes with his own.  
  
“C’mon, let’s go talk in the kitchen.”   
  
Daryl nodded, slipping around Rick and heading through the door. He didn't stop until he hit the island bar, hopping up onto it and pointing his eyes down at the tile.   
  
“We don’t have to talk tonight if you don’t wanna. God knows I’m shit at it,” Rick said, leaning against the counter opposite him. “Just didn't want you taking off in the snow.”   
  
“Mighta taken off upstairs instead.” But Daryl knew that was shit before he said it. His solace had and always would be outdoors. He picked at a small hole in his jeans, chewing on his lip. “Ain’t good at talkin either.”   
  
“Maybe it’s enough that we both know,” Rick said. “Maybe we can leave it there tonight.”   
  
“Think that’s good,” Daryl said, nodding. “Knowin’s good.”   
  
Rick stepped forward, tilting Daryl’s face up with a gentle nudge from his fingers.    
  
“It alright if I take another one of these though?” he asked, running his thumb across Daryl’s lips. “No talking required.”  
  
Daryl grunted his assent and Rick leaned in to kiss him, slower this time and more exploratory. The hunter felt the other man’s tongue slide around his mouth between undulations, tasting his teeth and tracing the ridges along the roof. It felt good being kissed like that by someone who didn't want to miss knowing every single centimeter of him, and when Rick finally pulled away, Daryl had to stop himself from reaching out and yanking him right back in.   
  
The leader punctuated the kiss with a smaller one and another and another--an ellipsis rather than a period--before leaning his forehead against Daryl’s, his hand resting warmly on the back of his neck.    
  
“Happy New Year, Daryl,” he said, without pulling away or even opening his eyes. Daryl reveled in the closeness--sharing air, sharing space, sharing feelings that didn’t need to be defined just yet. The hunter reached his hand around to the back of the other man’s neck, mirroring his pose, completely willing to stay just like that until someone made them move.   
  
“Happy New Year, Rick.” And maybe, just maybe, it would be.


	10. Kind of Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prompt fill using the quotes: 
> 
> “This is probably a bad time, but marry me?”
> 
> and 
> 
> “Shh… I’m sleeping.”

By the time Rick got home at twelve minutes past midnight, he was laughing. It wasn’t the way that someone laughs at a good joke, nor was it a giggle of joy borne from the mix of adrenaline and excitement one gets on a swing set or a roller coaster. No, the exhausted little chuckle was the result of a day so comically bad that he couldn’t believe he’d woken up at six a.m. that morning thinking it would be perfect.   
  
See, Rick had always been the kind of man to plan things out thoroughly. And his proposal to Daryl was no different. He knew he was the only man in Daryl’s life who had ever treated him with anything close to the respect that he deserved. And he knew he was likely to be the first and last man to ever ask him to walk down the aisle with him. He wanted it to be special. He wanted the man who truly felt like the other half of his soul to have a perfect moment he could look back on fondly until the day he died. 

Weeks were spent secretly contacting their friends he trusted most to both help and keep quiet, namely Michonne, Carol, and Aaron. He drove them up the wall asking for advice while he tried to toe the line between what Daryl deserved and what Daryl would tolerate without feeling uncomfortable.  
  
In the end, Rick settled on sticking to the same simplistic romance that was already woven tightly through his four year relationship with the high school shop teacher and avid hunter. After he finished his shift at the precinct, he would begin the with a low key dinner at their favorite burger joint, the same one they’d agreed to meet at all those years ago when Michonne strong armed them into a blind date. Afterward, he’d take Daryl out on the lake for a little night fishing and some cold beers. And when the moment felt right, he’d do it right there under the stars. Quietly, without fanfare, and away from any stares that might make Daryl feel caged in. Everyone had agreed that the idea was just right for them.   
  
And it would have been if any of it had actually happened. 

Everything had started to fall apart around noon. Two patrol officers, Martinez and Shumpert, pulled over an unassuming black sedan for a routine traffic stop. Six miles over the speed limit. What should have been a warning, maybe a ticket if the guy had a record, had turned into a shoot out that left Shumpert dead and Martinez barely hanging on after taking two rounds each in either thigh.  
  
When officers reviewing the dash footage noted that the suspect looked a lot like the sketches of notorious mass shooter Philip Blake, they’d started a city-wide manhunt, combing the streets of Atlanta one by one, with Lieutenant Grimes taking point on a group of officers canvassing a neighborhood on the south side. He’d barely managed to even find time to call Daryl before they were supposed to meet for dinner.   
  
“Think I’m gonna have to take a rain check on those burgers, sweetheart.”   
  
“Figured,” Daryl said. “They locked down the school earlier just in case.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could talk longer, but…”   
  
“Go do what you do, Rick,” he said. “Just make sure you come home to me after.”   
  
“I promise. I’ll try to be there in time to go fishing.”   
  
He hadn’t made it in time for fishing.   
  
In the end they’d found Blake holed up in the abandoned Woodbury Manufacturing building on the edge of city limit. What followed was a four hour stand off between him and nearly every officer in the city. The man had an arsenal so large there was no way he hadn’t been using that building as home base for a while. And he had thrown everything at them he had, wounding several officers and an overzealous journalist who’d sneaked past the checkpoints.   
  
“I’m going in,” Rick said, after fifteen minutes of pure silence from Blake’s end had them all believing he’d finally run out of weapons. The lieutenant was tired, his day had been literally shot to shit, and he still had the keys to the motorcycle he was planning to give Daryl as an engagement present in his pocket.   
  
“You sure?” Rhee asked. He was a recent transfer from another precinct, but Rick liked him alright from the few times they’d interacted. “This guy’s nuts.”   
  
“I’m sure,” Rick said. “You and Chambler take my six.”   
  
They nodded, following him to the front door where he quietly snipped the chain on it with bolt cutters. He figured it would be easy at that point. Blake was likely out of weapons, which meant it would end in one of three ways: a reluctant surrender, a fist fight followed by an arrest, or the idiot doing something stupid and getting himself shot.   
  
All things considered, Rick was glad it was the second one, even if it led to him dragging himself home with blood on his shirt and a nice set of bruises coloring his right eye and cheek.   
  
He found a burger in the fridge when he got there, and he scarfed it down hungrily before heading to the bedroom to ease his weary ass down into bed. In another universe, he’d be cuddled with his new fiancee, probably sleeping soundly after a night of consummating their engagement. He sighed, staring down at Daryl where he slept peacefully with a sheet draped over his waist, his bare chest rising and falling in the light filtering in from the city outside.   
  
“Hey,” Rick said quietly. He wanted to let him know that he’d kept his promise and come home to him.   
  
“Shh… I’m sleepin,” Daryl said back. Rick smiled and ghosted fingers through his lover’s sandy blonde hair. He never could’ve imagined that he would someday love someone so damn much.  
  
“Just letting you know I made it back,” he said.

“You look like shit,” Daryl muttered. “Bettin he looks worse.”   
  
“He does,” Rick said, leaning down to kiss him on the temple.   
  
And that’s when he decided that sometimes life was better unplanned. Sometimes things could be perfect even when they weren’t. He could very well have died earlier. Unlikely since he’d taken every proper precaution, but still possible. If it had been a trick. If Blake had merely been taking his sweet time to reload every gun he had.   
  
“This is probably a bad time, but marry me?”   
  
“What?”   
  
Rick turned on the lamp next to the bed.   
  
“I had this whole night planned out for us. For you,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and reaching up to rub his sore neck. “I was gonna ask you after dinner when we went fishing, but none of that happened. It doesn’t matter though. What matters is that I love you and when bad shit happens like it did today, I get through it by thinking of coming home to you.”   
  
“You were gonna…” Daryl sat up, quickly rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.   
  
“I want to spend the rest of my life coming home to you, Daryl. Shit, hold on.” Rick shifted to fish the keys out of his pants pocket, holding them out toward the other man who took them and rolled them around in his fingers. “They go to a motorcycle. It’s not much, something I picked up at an impound auction. But it runs and I know you could make it into something special.”   
  
“You’re proposin to me with a motorcycle?” Daryl asked.   
  
“You never seemed like the diamond type.” Rick shrugged.   
  
“Nah, I ain’t.”   
  
“Well, what do you think?”   
  
Daryl looked down at the keys in his hands, rubbing one of them with his thumb.   
  
“Think you should let your fiancee get you some ice for that eye,” Daryl said, leaning over to kiss Rick before sliding off the end of the bed and slinking toward the kitchen.   
  
Grinning, Rick pulled off his clothes and eased his sore bones down onto the mattress.

And maybe none of it had gone how he planned and he’d always remember that he’d felt a little like he’d been hit by a truck when he proposed to the man he loved. But damn if it still didn’t feel kind of perfect.


	11. A Friendly Ass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prompt fill using: 
> 
> “Have you ever thought about… like… us?”
> 
> and 
> 
> “My parents are coming over in 10 minutes so please put some clothes on”

Rick Grimes wasn’t the first guy Daryl ever slept with more than once, nor was he the first one that he’d fallen for after a one night stand had turned into a furniture store full of them. There’d been Joe, an older man with salt and pepper hair who’d found Daryl when he was barely eighteen. The hunter had thought he loved him back then, before Merle of all people had sat him down and forced him to open his eyes and realize just how sick the whole thing was. Joe was a toxic old pervert who preyed on boys too young to know any better.   
  
There’d been others since then, including the most recent one before Rick—a guy named Martinez who’d picked him up one night at the Leather Saddle, a local gay bar with a classic watering hole feel and a lot less in-your-face garishness than the Electric Rainbow on the other side of town. The sex was good, the banter was fun, and Martinez didn’t use him for anything he didn’t want to be used for. Daryl hadn’t quite gotten to love before the other man skipped town, but he realized after that it never would’ve worked out anyway. Daryl was a decent guy hidden behind a bad image; Martinez was an actual bad boy hidden behind a sweet smile.   
  
Rick though, Rick was different. He’d come from the Leather Saddle too, though he hadn’t tried to pick Daryl up with smooth talk and sweet nothings like Martinez or Joe. He’d simply found the only empty seat in the bar one night after a grueling day at work, sat down to Daryl, and ordered two shots of tequila.   
  
“I was gonna drink both of these,” Rick said, staring at the drinks like he didn’t really see them at all. “But maybe it’d be less sad if you took the other.”   
  
“Who? Me?” Daryl asked. He’d been looking the man over since he sat down, carefully taking in everything from the cowboy boots to the luscious thighs to soft waves atop his head. But as far as he knew, the man hadn’t even so much as glanced at him. Then again, if the uniform was any indication, maybe he was pretty good at noticing his surroundings even if he didn’t let on.   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Hard day?”   
  
“Shitty shitty day.” The man turned one of the shot glasses in circles with his fingers.   
  
“Maybe you should keep the other one then,” Daryl said. “I’ve got a beer. You can still count it as not drinkin alone.”   
  
“Maybe I should.” The man took both shots in quick succession, screwing up his face in a way that told Daryl he wasn’t a professional drinker, which automatically separated him from half the people Daryl had ever known.  
  
“Wanna talk about it?” Daryl asked. He wasn’t too good at giving advice or saying shit that made someone feel better, but he was a hell of a listener, and sometimes that was all people needed.   
  
“Honestly? No.” The cop put his face down on his arms, rubbing the bridge of his nose.   
  
And maybe it was the beer talking or the fact that Daryl hadn’t had sex in two months. Or maybe it was that the man had hair that Daryl was pretty sure he could spend days running his fingers through, but he couldn’t help himself.   
  
“Want me to help you forget?”   
  
Daryl had spent that night white-knuckling the wooden bars of Rick’s headboard, crying obscenities out at the ceiling while the other man muttered filth into his ear that would make even Merle blush.   
  
At the time, Daryl figured that would be it between them. But Rick kept calling. At first, it was only on the bad days. He’d bury himself inside of Daryl to help him forget the horrors and stresses of his job. But then then good days started slipping through the streams of bad. Daryl got to see Rick happy and lightly flirty and with a smile that took his already beautiful features into another damn dimension. That’s when his heart started to slant a little more in Rick’s direction. Two more months of nights filled with hot sex and conversations that only tapered off when one of them fell asleep had only made it worse. Until one day he was pretty damn sure it was love and that any time he’d thought he felt it before Rick was complete bullshit.   
  
“Was hoping I’d find you here,” Rick said, sliding into the seat next to him at the bar. He leaned over and took a kiss from Daryl, a soft peck with a subtle flick of his tongue across the hunter’s lips. The cop knew Daryl hated PDAs so he didn’t push it, even though a small part of Daryl wished he would.   
  
“Can I go ahead and ask if you wanna get out of here, or do I need to buy you a drink first?” Rick asked.   
  
“Only here because I thought you were busy,” Daryl said, pulling out his wallet. Rick’s parents were supposed to coming into Atlanta to see some old country singer and were going to stop off and have dinner with their son beforehand. Meaning that his and Rick’s usual Friday night activity had to be pushed back by a few hours.   
  
“They were running late for the concert, and my daddy can’t stand not being at least thirty minutes early to everything,” Rick said with a shrug. Daryl nodded.   
  
“So, my place or yours?”   
  
“Mighty forward of you, Mr. Dixon. Maybe I was just gonna take you to dinner seeing as I haven’t had any.”   
  
Daryl imagined it briefly, sitting in some booth across from Rick on a real date. It was a lot easier to picture than Daryl wished it was. Every man he’d ever been with had wrecked him in some way, and now he’d gone and put Rick in a position to potentially destroy him harder than anyone ever had.   
  
“Mhm.” Daryl grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on.   
  
Thirty minutes and two scarfed down fast food meals later, Daryl was in Rick’s bed with his legs wrapped around the other man’s hips, Rick’s arms clasped around Daryl’s back and shoulders, his cock buried inside his ass to the hilt. The cop rocked slowly in and out of his body, his erection dragging agonizingly slow across places Daryl desperately needed to be touched hard and fast.   
  
“You know I’ll give you what you want if you ask for it,” Rick said. “Let me hear it tumble on out of those pretty lips, Daryl.”   
  
“Need you.”   
  
“I know you do,” Rick said, still rocking. “Tell me how.”   
  
“Need it so hard it shakes the walls. Please.”   
  
“All you had to say.” Rick shifted his body to support his weight on his arms, and even though Daryl knew that meant he’d be getting the railing he always seemed to need so damn much from Rick, he couldn’t help the little pang of loss that came with Rick no longer holding him so intimately. It didn’t last long though, because as soon as Rick started to move in and out of his body with fervor, Daryl couldn’t think enough to feel.   
  
“Fuck.”   
  
“Such a hungry tight ass,” Rick said. “You’re so damn good at taking it, Daryl..”  
  
Daryl reached up wildly and aimlessly, one hand finding Rick’s toned shoulder and gripping it tightly, while the other fisted into his waves.   
  
“Harder. Please.”   
  
“Such good manners,” Rick said, “for such a filthy boy.”  
  
Daryl squeezed his thighs tighter around Rick’s body, using the leverage to buck into Rick’s thrusts, moans stuttering out of him every time his erection brushed against Rick’s stomach. It wouldn’t be long. They’d been at it pretty hard already before Rick had decided to slow down and tease him, and with the action picked back up in earnest, Daryl could feel the precipice of his release fast approaching.   
  
“Gonna…”   
  
“Good,” Rick said. “All over both of us. I want to feel it rubbing between our bodies while I finish using your hole.”   
  
“Fucking Christ.”   
  
“Sometimes it feels like it.” Rick growled low with effort as he put even more strength behind his thrusts, pounding into Daryl so hard the headboard clacked against the wall. Daryl let his mouth hang open, not even entirely sure what sounds were coming out of his throat while stars exploded inside of his body and mind.   
  
“C'mon Daryl, cum for me.”   
  
Not a problem.   
  
“Fuck fuck fuck.” The world snapped in two, and he felt his cock twitch between them, shooting streams of warmth onto his and Rick’s bodies while his eyes rolled back into his head.   
  
“There you go,” Rick said, shifting to put more of his weight on Daryl’s body again, purposely smearing cum across their skin. “Now where do you want it? Want me to fill your ass? Want to guzzle it down your throat? Paint it across your face?”   
  
Daryl bit his lip, trying to think through the intensity that came with feeling Rick’s cock moving inside of him when he was already well past gone himself. Why couldn’t he magically have all three?   
  
“Stomach,” Daryl said.   
  
Rick laughed low and sexy in that way Daryl liked to imagine only he had ever heard.   
  
“You want me to mix it with yours. Cum all over you and then smear it all over us.. That’s what you want.” None of it was a question, nor was any of it untrue. That was exactly what Daryl had in mind.   
  
Rick slid out of him and up onto his knees, wrapping his hand around his own cock and rubbing it feverishly, the tip of it pointed directly at the smears all over Daryl’s body. Daryl watched, memorizing Rick’s face again even though he’d seen it like this dozens of times. Rick pressed his lips into a thin line, jaw clenching, blue eyes fluttering under closed lids. Daryl waited, biting his own lip until Rick’s head tilted back, and he knew he his lover was cumming before a drop ever hit is own skin.   
  
After, Rick made good on the hunter’s wish, easing down on top of him and kissing him lazily while cum and sex sweat smeared between their bodies. They didn’t bother cleaning it up before they moved to lay side-by-side under the ceiling fan, the backs of their fingers barely touching between them.  
  
“Good day?” Daryl asked, hoping to distract himself from how much he wanted Rick to hold his hand. He felt his own fingers twitch, not entirely sure if it was on purpose or not. Rick’s twitched too.   
  
“Nothin special,” Rick said. “A few traffic stops. Shane confirming why he’s still single. Leon being an idiot. You?”   
  
“Bout the same,” Daryl said, shifting so his calf rested against Rick’s. He felt the other man’s fingers twitch again. “Just tr-”  
  
Rick’s phone buzzed on the night stand, blaring out the Allman Brothers.   
  
“Shit, hold that thought.”   
  
“Gotta piss anyway,” Daryl lied. Mostly it was just getting harder and harder to be near Rick that long without it driving him insane.   
  
He went to the bathroom and sat naked on the side of the tub, grabbing a wash rag and using it to wipe some of the mess off his body while he listened to the stream of “mhm”s and “yeah”s coming from the bedroom. Even muffled through a wall, he could sit and listen to Rick’s voice all night. There was no way he could keep going on like this without it driving him nuts. He had to say something, and he had to do it sooner rather than later.   
  
He waited for the bedroom to be quiet long enough that he was sure Rick was done on the phone and stepped out, keeping his eyes trained on the carpet to keep from losing his resolve.   
  
“Rick, have you ever thought about…like…” He faltered and wished he’d had a few more beers back at the bar.  
  
“About?” Rick asked, the rustle of fabric signaling that he was sliding back into his clothes. Daryl still didn’t look at him. One more word, one more word and he’d be past the point of no return. God, what if Rick wanted him gone after that? What if he wanted things Rick didn’t want to give him and lost him completely?   
  
Or what if he never said anything and kept torturing himself until Rick ultimately moved on with someone else?   
  
“Us?” Daryl spat out, biting his lip and chancing a glance up at Rick who was quickly doing up the belt on a pair of black jeans.   
  
“Aw hell, Daryl,” he said. Daryl felt his heart sink at the words, knowing full well that he’d probably just ruined everything.   
  
“Forget it,” Daryl said.   
  
“You know I can’t do that,” Rick said. “I want to have this conversation. I really do, and I’ve been meaning to bring it up myself, but right now isn’t really good for me.” Rick gathered up Daryl’s clothes on the floor and held them out toward him.   
  
“What?” Daryl asked. If Rick wanted to talk about them, then why was he basically telling him to get out?   
  
“Listen, I have feelings for you. I have for a while and you gotta know that, but my parents are coming over in ten minutes, so please put some clothes on.” Rick checked his watch. “And ten minutes to my daddy means they’re probably already in the damn parking lot.”   
  
“Shit,” Daryl said, frantically sliding into his jeans and doing them up. He barely had time to snap the buttons on his tan work shirt closed before someone knocked on the door. “Rick, do your parents know you’re…”   
  
“Nope.”   
  
“Fuck.”   
  
Rick had his back door blocked off with a portable dishwasher and none of the windows opened more than a few inches. There was no way in fuck Daryl was escaping the incoming storm of awkward.   
  
“Mom, dad,” Rick said, ushering them into the apartment where Daryl tried to look casual on the couch. Just a friend who’d come over to shoot the shit on a Friday night. Definitely not someone whose cum was probably still painted across their son’s body.   
  
“Sir. Ma'am.” Daryl stood up, his palms already sweating. “Was just leavin.”   
  
“Oh nonsense,” Rick’s mother said. “We haven’t met any of his friends in the city. I’m Beverly Grimes, and this is my husband, Carl.” She and Carl offered their hands, and Daryl shook them, chancing a glance at Rick who stood behind them reminding Daryl of a deer that just realized a hunter had it in their sight.   
  
“I’m Daryl. Dixon. It was nice meetin y’all, but I really gotta…” He pointed at the door with his thumb.   
  
“Don’t be silly,” she said, taking him by the arm and sitting him down on the couch. “Now tell me how you know Rick.”   
  
Fuck.   
  
“Uh…”   
  
“Friendly ear at the bar one night after a bad day at work,” Rick supplied quickly. Daryl nodded. That was mostly true anyway. Friendly ear. Friendly ass. What difference did it make really?  
  
“That’s nice,” she said, patting Daryl’s arm. “He needs someone like that with his job. Carl always did.”   
  
“Oh, you a cop too, sir?” Daryl asked, happy to take the focus of the conversation off of himself.   
  
“I was. A detective.”   
  
“Any good?” Daryl nervously chewed on his tongue.   
  
“Richard?” Carl said, not taking his eyes off Daryl when he said it.   
  
“Sir?”   
  
“How long have you been sleeping with this boy that he doesn’t even know what your old man did?”   
  
Daryl went wide-eyed, snapping his head at Rick who was still standing on the other side of the coffee table, looking much the same way.   
  
“Carl, that’s ridiculous,” Beverly said, laughing nervously.   
  
“Is it? It smells like sex in here, and this one’s hair is still sweaty.” He pointed at Daryl.  
  
“But he dated that little girl down the street forever. What was her name again? Laura?”   
  
“Lori,” Rick said without even looking at her.   
  
“Yes, Lori. They were inseparable. Couldn’t believe they didn’t get married.”   
  
“He also let Shane sneak in his bedroom window every night for nearly a month.”   
  
“You knew?” Rick breathed.   
  
“Wait, your partner Shane?” Daryl asked. “You guys…?”   
  
“In high school,” Rick said, still staring at his father. “We never even… Aw, hell.” He sank down onto the nearest available surface, an arm chair caddy-cornered to the couch.   
  
“I don’t understand,” Beverly said. “How can he…?  
  
“I’m not gay, mom,” Rick said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I sort of… play for both teams.”   
  
“Oh my.” She put her hand to her mouth. “And you, Mr. Dixon, are you…? Do you?”   
  
Oh God. Daryl cleared his throat.   
  
“Gayer than Christmas morning,” Daryl mumbled, adding a quiet “ma'am” to the end after he finished thinking about how much he’d like to die now please and thank you.   
  
“And do you…”  
  
“Beverly,” Carl said to stop her. And Daryl was grateful because he had a pretty good idea of where that question was headed, and he was not ready to admit that he’d had their son’s dick up his ass repeatedly.   
  
“I was just going to ask him if he loves my son.”   
  
Daryl glanced at her and then at Rick, who had looked up from where he’d been staring at the floor and massaging his temples. Daryl met his eyes, watched one of the other man’s eyebrows flick up.  
  
“You don’t have to answer that,” Rick said. Daryl glanced down at the floor to calm his nerves before meeting Rick’s eyes again.   
  
“I think so, ma'am.”   
  
Daryl heard Rick’s exhale from across the room, watched his head tilt quickly while his eyebrows went up, wordlessly saying, “you do?”   
  
Daryl nodded once, an almost imperceptible movement, but Rick caught it, one corner of his mouth twitching up in the hint of a smile.   
  
“Think it’s mutual,” Rick said back, and Daryl felt the corners of his own mouth give a twitch. “Just wish this conversation had gone a little differently.”   
  
Daryl couldn’t exactly disagree there.   
  
“S'Alright, Rick,” Daryl said. “I’m only a lot uncomfortable.”   
  
Rick and his father both laughed at the same time, the older of the two clapping Daryl on the shoulder.   
  
“Look on the bright side, son,” he said. “You’ve already met the parents.”   
  
He had a point.   
  
“And I suppose if you promise to still give me grandchildren, I could be okay with…” Beverly paused, waving her hand in the air around him and Rick. “This.”   
  
Wait, what?  
  
“Jesus, mom,” Rick said.   
  
“You can adopt,” she said. “Like that Neil Patrick Harris guy. Or those two on that Modern Family show.”   
  
“Alright,” Rick said, clapping his hands on his thighs and standing up. “Well it’s been great seeing you two. I’m sure you need to be getting back now.”   
  
“Richard…”  
  
He ushered them both out of the apartment with quick hugs and “I love you”s. Daryl heard Mrs. Grimes call back a “please take good care of my son” before Rick closed the door on her, the cop sighing in relief and turning back to give Daryl the most apologetic look he’d ever seen.   
  
“I’m so sorry you had to be here for that,” he said, crossing the room to sit on the couch next to Daryl. “That is not at all how I… If I’d known they'd… Did you mean…”   
  
“Did _you_?” Daryl asked.   
  
“I did,” Rick said. “I meant what I said earlier about really wanting to have that conversation. Hell, it’s been torturing me for weeks.”   
  
“It has?”   
  
“Yes,” Rick said. “I kept thinking I should just take your hand or do something else that you’d know couldn’t be just about sex, that I should say something, but I was afraid I’d run you off.”   
  
Daryl snorted.   
  
“Me too.”   
  
“Gotta say.” Rick reached for Daryl’s hand, taking it for the first time that didn’t involve pinning Daryl down or wrapping it around some part of Rick’s anatomy. “Wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it to happen, but I’m glad it’s all out in the open.”   
  
Daryl nodded, looking down at the way their hands linked together so easily, flexing his fingers a little both in fascination and disbelief. He rubbed his thumb along the ridges of one of Rick’s knuckles.   
  
“Gotta work in the morning?”   
  
“Shane asked for the weekend off,” Rick said. “Which means I get the weekend off too.”   
  
“I can stay then?”   
  
“You’d be staying even if I did work, but yes you can. You can have the spare toothbrush in the top drawer in the bathroom too. Bought it for you anyway.”   
  
“You bought me a toothbrush?” Daryl asked.   
  
“Yeah, one of the ways I’d planned to tell you. Chickened out. I had you a key made a while back too if you want it.”   
  
“Shit, Rick.”

“Yeah, I know,” Rick said. “I’ve heard I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic. The hopeless part being that I can hardly ever follow through.” 

“And here I didn’t get you anything.”   
  
“All things considered, Daryl, I reckon you’ll do.”  
  
Daryl smiled, more with his eyes than his mouth.   
  
“All things considered, Rick, I reckon you will too.”


	12. The Man on the Bus

The man on the bus was staring at him. Rick could feel the near-intense burn of his eyes, and half the time when he glanced up, the man didn’t even bother to act like he wasn’t looking.

Rick knew it probably had something to do with the little ball of quiet nerves in his lap. The small German Shepherd puppy he’d just picked up at the shelter kept letting out the tiniest of whines when the air brakes hissed.

“There there, sweet girl,” Rick said softly, scratching behind her ears. Putting himself in her shoes, he could understand fully how she felt. She’d just been taken from the only life she’d ever known by a strange man, and now she was on a strange bus full of other strange people. He would have been nervous too.

He scratched at her some more, until the heat of the man’s eyes got to be too much. Flicking his own gaze up, he met the same intense blue eyes that had been on him since he boarded.  

“Not a fan of dogs?” Rick asked lightly, hoping to diffuse the tension some. He only had a few more stops, and then he and Lulu would be home. No more strangers or stares, not for a little while anyway.

“Are you allowed to have dogs on the bus?” the stranger asked, his long dark hair falling across his face.

Perfect, this guy was going to pick a fight with him and his new puppy just minutes from home. Rick felt his hackles raise, but opted for the option that seemed least likely to start a full blown argument. With a shrug, he leaned back in his seat, once more focusing his energy on the puppy, who seemed to sense that he was tense. She looked up at him with big, worried eyes that said she wasn’t really quite prepared to fight for him yet.

“We’re almost there, darlin,” he said, raking his fingers under her chin. She whined quietly, and he chanced a look back at the man who had been staring at him. His hope was that he’d successfully kept things calm enough to get them both through the bus ride.

But the man was in his own little world, a tiny mutt that looked to be at least part chihuahua perched on his lap. Where it had come from, the deputy had no clue. The man had no bag or even a box. It was like he’d magically pulled it from one of the holes in his jeans.

And at the sight of him scratching the tiny pup’s belly, Rick’s face cracked into a smile, a single note of quiet laughter slipping out of him. It drew the man’s attention, even as he continued to love on his tiny dog.

“This here’s Killer,” he said, before adding, “I’m Daryl.”

“Lulu,” Rick responded. “And Rick.”

“She’s cute,” Daryl said, and something about the easiness of his features in that moment almost had Rick spilling out a, “yeah, so are you,” but he kept his control.

“Thanks,” Rick said. “Your little guy’s not so bad either.”

“Yips like the devil singin in the shower sometimes, but he’s alright.”

“Can’t say what this one’ll do yet,” Rick said. “Just adopted her.”

“Found this guy under the dumpster out back of my apartment a couple weeks ago,” Daryl said. “Guess he adopted me. Good dog though. Trainin up real easy and keeps my feet warm at night.”

And Rick would have been content to sit there and talk about their dogs all night, but unfortunately he had a little girl to feed and walk and was unable to change the geographic location of his apartment through sheer will alone. Reluctantly, he hit the signaling strip.

“This is me,” he said, standing up when the bus started to slow.

“Was nice to meet you and Lulu. Maybe we’ll see you around again sometime,” Daryl said, sounding almost hopeful.

“Maybe,” Rick said as the doors opened. And with Lulu tucked under one arm, he reached down and gave Killer a little scratch behind the ears, meeting Daryl’s blue eyes one more time. That close, they nearly forced all the air out of Rick’s lungs.

And if Lulu hadn’t whined at the hiss of the breaks again, he might have forgotten entirely that he was supposed to get off the bus. Telepathically thanking her, he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

“Good luck,” Daryl called after him before the doors closed.

And for some reason, even with the softly wiggling ball of life in his arms, Rick still stood there, watching the bus drive away until it was a speck of light in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this lovely tweet.](https://twitter.com/mogvvai/status/930232715688886272)


End file.
